Summer Plans

I'm so excited! I've been trying to put together two research trips this summer: one up to DC and one to Albany, NY. They are both still in the works, but now I've added a NYC trip as well. The DC one is pretty easy since I'll be driving and crashing at littlepixiechic's, so it doesn't have to be planned too far in advance. Only stipulation is it has to happen before July 1 because I got money for the trip that is based on fiscal year and some other screwy stuff.

The Albany trip is a bit more complicated. I need to book flights and a place to stay ASAP, but how long I can stay depends greatly on how much money I get and I don't know that yet. Around $2000 is a possibility for what I can get, but none of that is a sure thing. The worst is that $500 can't be applied for until after July 1 (back to the fiscal year stuff) and the trip has to take place after July 1. I don't know if I should book based on a best case scenario and rearrange if the money doesn't come through or what. I did that for NYC last year and not all the money came through and I ended up just covering the rest (with help from the folks). I can't afford to do that this year because my money situation for the next year is very tight followed by no income at all. I'm still pondering this one.

I'm currently most excited about the NYC trip, possibly just because it was the unexpected one that just fell into my lap. I wasn't thinking about going there at all this summer until Tuesday and I already have everything booked. What happened is that on Tuesday I found out about a workshop that will be happening at Columbia University in June on reading 17th-Century Dutch. Y'all know I've been working on learning Dutch and I need it for my dissertation. I'm decent at modern Dutch but I still have a lot of trouble with the 17th-century Dutch I need for my research. My troubles are two-fold: the language has changed quite a bit and the handwriting has changed even more so that sometimes I can't figure out the letters and wouldn't be able to read the stuff even if it was in English. This workshop is taught by two people, one of whom focuses on the language and the other of whom focuses just on the handwriting so it is exactly what I need and I am geektastically super excited about it. The really awesome part is the workshop itself is free, my mom had enough frequent flyer miles for a free flight (provided we could make the days work and the best way to do that gives me a free day to play tourist in NYC), and I found a good, safe hostel less than a mile from Columbia so the entire trip is costing less than $200. I can't wait!!

Comments:

The seventeenth-century Dutch workshop sounds awesome. My (not so)inner geek is very jealous, even though I don't know any Dutch. Very cool that they're focusing on the handwriting as well as the language!